Things have been a little quiet around here lately, sorry!
This time last week I was in Uganda! I had an amazing week in Kampala seeing the work of Compassion UK on the ground.
I finally got my photos onto facebook yesterday, and a few videos, but I’ve got loads of stories to tell and diary to write up comprehensibly, so what will probably happen is that over a period of time I’ll upload a series of blog posts on here telling you all about it – can’t wait! 🙂
Still a week behind! Last weeks reading was from Colossians 1 vv 3-14:
“3 We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, 4 because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God’s people – 5 the faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel 6 that has come to you. In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world – just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God’s grace. 7 You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, 8 and who also told us of your love in the Spirit.
9 For this reason, since the day we heard about you, we have not stopped praying for you. We continually ask God to fill you with the knowledge of his will through all the wisdom and understanding that the Spirit gives, 10 so that you may live a life worthy of the Lord and please him in every way: bearing fruit in every good work, growing in the knowledge of God, 11 being strengthened with all power according to his glorious might so that you may have great endurance and patience, 12 and giving joyful thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of his holy people in the kingdom of light. 13 For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, 14 in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Wow. There’s some big stuff in there!
Also a mention for James 5v16:
“Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.”
We’d good at praying for people when they’re going through hardships, but when things are going well or routinely, we tend to neglect them in our prayers.
C.S. Lewis recognised that prayer is needed at all times, he wrote to a friend: “I specially need your prayers because I am traveling across ‘a plain called Ease'”
We need prayer as much when things are routine as when there’s trouble. But what do we pray for the routine times? Try out verse 10!
We can’t improve on Paul’s prayers, take 2 or 3 names a day from the church directory (or some other list of people you know) and use Ephesians 1, Ephesians 4, and Colossians 1 and put their names in!
Otherwise we end up as just prayer chain pray-ers, what about everyone else? They still need to grown in the love and knowledge of God.
“His letters contain some things that are hard to understand” – 2 Peter 3v16, Even Peter admits some of Paul’s writing is difficult!
Things Paul prays
If our greatest need was a economy or entertainment, God would have sent an economist or Ant & Dec (wait a minute?!), but He sent us a Saviour.
Nothing can separate us from the love of God
When we pray for others, we can pray through all the bullet points above!
I don’t intend to double up on these every week, but again at housegroup this week I noted something I want to mention.
A lot of the content of the sermon and the housegroup discussion seemed to go back to coffees after the service, and how we tend to just stand like a lemon, waiting for someone to talk to us, or just talk to the people we want to talk to.
The idea was to encourage us to talk to someone different, but part of me wonders what’s wrong with it being an opportunity for me to talk to my friends, some of them it’s the only time I see them in the week.
And anyway, if you’re going to keep saying how none of us want to talk to each other, why do I want to put someone through talking to me who obviously doesn’t want to?
Just a thought…..
A week behind, this is last Sunday’s sermon, but hopefully I’ll catch up on these soon enough!
We looked at Romans 15v7 and Romans 16 vv 1-16
To welcome can also mean to accept, to greet, to receive.
It means to look beyond the physical, look beyond the differences, and see them as children of God.
People long for a sense of acceptance.
We’re naturally drawn into friend groups. That’s good, and it’s a God given gift, but we need to not get stuck in them.
It’s good to have close friendships, but not to be exclusive. It’s hard for new people and visitors to break in.
There’s a positive to facebook in that it allows you to know something about what’s going on in someones life, and so when you see them in person to have something to ask them about.
Woman and slaves may have been bottom of the pile, but in Romans 16 Paul spends half of the list bothering to greet them. How do we treat those who are vulnerable and lonely?
Everyone has been invited into God’s family. Christians are those who have accepted the welcome.
Jesus is the welcome of God to us. He opened His arms on the cross and welcomed us home.
The parable of the prodigal son is the strongest example of this.
“Christ will shine forever, loves unfading splendour”
As well as following the Love One Another series in our Sunday sermons (yes I know I’m a week behind, apologies!), we’re also looking at these commands in our housegroups. I doubt I’ll blog from them every time, but just wanted to share something that struck me this evening.
So we’re looking at loving one another, and what that looks like, and we read a very well known passage, 1 Corinthians 13 vv 1-7:
1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast,[b] but do not have love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Now I love this, it’s so over used in weddings, but that’s not even the sort of love it’s talking about! This is about God’s love for us, but also how we ought to be loving one another. This is what love looks like.
We were encouraged to put “Jesus” in the place of love, which makes for a beautiful reading. Then we were encouraged to put “I am” in the place of “love is” – now that’s hard to read!
So yea, how do we do that? Then we looked at Galatians 5 vv 22-23:
22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. 24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.
Check that out! There is SO much overlap there with what love is in the first passage! Patience, Kindness, just compare the two sets of verses! All we need is the Holy Spirit, and we will have those things that allow us to love those that are not so easy to love. How fab is that?
I had a bit of a revelation about Postman Pat last week, he’s come up in conversation a lot (I even found out it was my bosses favourite childhood TV show – even more respect to him!), and I’ve been realising what an incredible person Patrick Clifton is!
This was actually from the episode where he needs to somehow deliver a bouncy castle to a party!
I’ve always loved Pat, my Grandma gave me my toy cat when I was 2 years old for Christmas and even though she’s a she, and looks nothing like Postman Pat’s cat, she was named Jess, and I still have her in my bed!
http://instagram.com/p/dsl-HqEYjK/
I’ve even mentioned him in my blog before!
Here’s a classic episode, enjoy 🙂
This morning in church we started a new series on “the one another commands” which feels like it’s been a long time coming – we’ve had a lot of references to “one anothering one another” and so I’m hoping this is going to be really good. If today was anything to go by it will be! We had a guest speaker who opened with the one mentioned in the title!
“Over every thought
Over every word
May my life reflect
The beauty of my Lord”“You do not faint
You don’t grow weary”
Love One Another :: 1 John 3 vv 11-24
Loving one another is hard!
You can break it down into it’s elements, but at the end of the day you just have to do it – kind of like learning to swim!
Loving one another is part of salvation
Loving one another is proof of salvation
It’s not an optional extra.
“One another” covers everyone, it’s a mutual thing, it’s 2-way
So often our experience of God’s love is through other people.
Loving one another is about five things
Love has to be done in a way that people will receive it. We all have particular ways we receive love and affection – The five love languages (gifts, time, words, touch, acts of service).
We tend to love other people in the way that we like to receive love. We have to find a way of loving people in a way that they can receive it and know that they are loved.
The world will know God’s love when we love one another, when the world sees that we can love people we don’t like.
“This is my command: love each other” – John 15v17
“How good and pleasant it is when God’s people live together in unity!” – Psalm 133v1
“Keep us from just singing
Move us into action”“You have shown us what you require”
These guys are a recent discovery of mine thanks to my friend Nisha. They do really great takes on both classical and pop songs, which are generally both clever and beautiful!
As my Dad pointed out, sometimes it’s just cello and there’s not a piano in sight, but I still love it!
Here’s five of my favourites!
What makes you beautiful
Yes, I know, it’s One Direction, but it’s technically genius the different ways they get the sounds out of one instrument! Give it a chance!
Rockelbel’s Canon (take on Pachelbel’s Canon)
A very tacky video, but a great take on a classic!
Moonlight (take on Moonlight Sonata by Beethoven)
The Cello Song (Bach)
Titanium
Which is your favourite? Have you come across anything else like this?
In October my church is launching a Christianity Explored course, (please let me know if you’d like more info!), and so in place of today’s sermon we watched the first video from the course, the introduction, by Rico Tice. It looks *really* good, it’s a few weeks plus one away day, looking at the Gospel of Mark! If you aren’t local to me, but are still interested in hearing more about Jesus, find a course near you!
“In this song the actions praise His name.
I want my actions every day to do the same.”“Name above all names,
You are worthy of all praise.
My heart will sing,
‘How great is our God.'”
Good News – Mark 1 vv 1-20
Think of somewhere beautiful part of nature you’ve seen. A river, a meadow, a mountain? Table mountain was the example given:
Do you really think something that stunning could have happened by chance?
You are incredible! In your body there are about 100 trillion cells, each of which contains DNA. If you stretched out the DNA in one cell it would be about 2 or 3 metres. If you put all the DNA in your body in one long line, then, depending on what website you look at it’d stretch to the moon, or to the moon and back 8 times, or to the sun and back 4 times… whichever it is, it’s a long long way! You are incredible!
Christianity is not about churches, rules, leaving your mind at the door and ruining your fun. It’s about Jesus Christ: “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah” – v1a.
It was risky for Mark to call him Christ. At the time Roman Emperors were said to have the divine authority.
Gospel = Good News. And not just average good news. This is dancing in the street, end of the war Good News!
If you’ve heard it, and don’t think that it’s the best news you’ve ever heard then you haven’t understood it.
Mark was written around 45-60AD and he was guided by Peter, one of Jesus’ closest followers.
It all gets a bit weird in verses 9-11, heaven tearing open and a voice booming out – the people even thought it odd at the time, but they’d been told in advance! (vv 2-3)
Jesus is more than an ordinary man, we should be surprised that extraordinary things begin to happen.
Mark is just getting started.
We have a responsibility not to keep this to ourselves in the Great Commission.
Go forth and tell! O Church of God, awake!
God’s saving news to all the nations take;
Proclaim Christ Jesus, Savior, Lord, and King,
That all the world His worthy praise may sing.Go forth and tell! O Church of God, arise!
Go in the strength which Christ, your Lord, supplies;
Go till all nations His great name adore
And serve Him, Lord and King, forevermore.
Better late than never! After a busy weekend, have finally got round to typing up my Sunday sermon notes.
My notes normally start with lines that have struck me from the songs we’ve sung, then go through what we’ve heard in the sermon, and then anything from the final song, so I thought I may as well keep that up here. There’s bits missing from the sermons to, I just write down the bits that strike me. All it really is is a collection of thoughts I’m sharing just incase they help others!
“I’m so unworthy, but still You love me”
“All my sins are now forgiven
and my life is hidden
saved through Jesus Christ”“My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness
I dare not trust my feeble frame but wholly lean on Jesus’ name”
Matthew 13 vv 31-33 – The parables of the mustard seed and the yeast
In those days, the word “Kingdom” was associated more with power and glamour, the rule of the Roman Empire. People hearing the stories about farming would maybe find that hard to understand.
The parable of the mustard seed
A mustard seed is about a millimetre in diameter, barely visible. It’s hard to believe that that speck can grow to a bush 6-12ft high – so large that birds shelter under it’s branches!
Sometimes we can see things as mediocre mustard seeds, but this parable teaches us to view things through the eyes of faith.
Jesus was the ultimate mustard seed. The son of a carpenter, He died on a wooden cross, saved for the worst of criminals, He was buried in a borrowed tomb, not at all impressive.
“For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.” – 1 Corinthians 1 v 25
What began in Israel breaks out into the whole world, the Kingdom is growing every time someone decides to make Jesus Lord and King of their life. He died and rose again to bring us into His Kingdom.
We’re heading towards Revelation 7 vv 9-10: “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’” A multitude – all tribe and tongue – not dissimilar to an afternoon in Westfields shopping centre?! But praising God!
The parable of the yeast
This is how the Kingdom grows.
The effects of yeast are massively disproportionate to it’s size. The effect Christian individuals and groups can have when they infiltrate society.
The yeast itself is hidden inside. The Holy Spirit is transforming us from within.
Rodney Start, in “The triumph of Christianity” argues that Christianity grew because of the way it cared for people, both within and outside of the church. He even cites pagan sources that complain about the good reputation Christians were gaining!
One of the greatest periods of social improvement cam through Christians in the late 18th and the whole 19th century. The abolition of the slave trade, improvements in education and also workers rights, for which the first fighters were Methodist preachers!
We need to be communities of yeast working quietly and effectively in our towns and cities. We should not underestimate our influence as Christians.
A little years and a small seed can go a long, long way. We just need to leave the results to God.
God works with the small, weak, unimpressive things. His power is made perfect in our weakness.
“We will not be crushed, Your hope will strengthen us”
“Through our lives, by Your Grace, may we overflow with Jesus”
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